


Sister

by manthem



Category: Far Cry (Video Games), Far Cry 3
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/F, Slow Burn, edit: in hindsight this is way more vague than i intended, they never went to the island, this fic is about liza snow and coming out to yourself and that's pretty much it
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-19
Updated: 2018-11-24
Packaged: 2019-06-12 10:12:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,490
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15337659
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/manthem/pseuds/manthem
Summary: all my life i thought i'd change





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> get it like the Angel Olsen song

Liza Snow leans her head back to catch the afternoon sunshine. She’s perched delicately on the hood of her car, smoking. Only 2 people still in her life know she smokes; her mom, and Daisy, who has been trying for the last minute to work the shitty gas station lighter Liza keeps in the glove compartment “for emergencies”. 

Daisy finally gets the lighter going and takes a deep pull of the shitty gas station cigarettes Liza bought with the lighter and taped to the underside of the driver’s seat. 

“Do you wanna go back to the party?”

The party in question is to celebrate finishing production of Liza’s first role as a featured actress. It is a cute, kitschy little romcom. It’s sweet, almost childishly so. It was fucking hard to make. Unexpected, right? But a real feature-length movie was fucking hard. It’s not the hardest thing she’s ever had to do but it’s up there. God, is it up there. 

Liza takes a drag of her own cigarette and turns over to look at Daisy, who’s pinched the filter between her bared teeth so she can pull her bra and top up with both hands. The parking lot is enclosed so neither of them can see the beach, but Liza knows that if she could, the sand in the sunlight would be the same colour as Daisy’s hair. In her blue blouse and soft perma-tan she looks a bit like the sun itself. 

“Not really. Jason’s not coming”

“Oh my God, fuck Jason. It’s your party, you should be there.”

Liza looks down at the phone balanced on her thigh, at the text chain for ‘Jason [green heart emoji]’, the little “ill try 2 make it” message dated 16 hours ago, from before she went to sleep, and before he got home from whatever it is he does all day. He doesn’t have a job again. He wakes up after she’s already left, and doesn’t get home until afternoon, sometimes at night, after she’s already gone to sleep. She stopped asking what he was doing when he stopped answering in full sentences, and then finally stopped asking entirely when he would only answer with “stuff”. 

Fucking “stuff”. 

So she’d wasted two entire hours she could’ve spent getting good, not-gas-station coffee, good, not-gas-station breakfast, and getting to work early to run lines, just kind of fucking around. Waiting for him to get up on his own to ask if he was going to go. Finally he walks in on her sitting cross legged on the living room floor, looking out through the closed balcony doors at the view, and they both jump. She blanks on asking if he’s coming today because she’s staring at the artery in his temple. He sets his jaw and shoulders before he can even speak to her. He didn’t always do that. He couldn’t have always been doing that. When did he start? Was it after Thailand? 

“I can’t make it to the thing today,” he announces first.

“Okay. And it’s a wrap party”

“I know it is”

“Okay. I love you, Jason”

 

(In the pause before he speaks, civilisations rise and fall. Entire dynasty’s become so much ash. Fucking Thailand.)

 

“Yeah, love you too.”

(The gas station coffee tasted like diesel and she threw the whole thing in the garbage. She told Daisy later that she couldn’t subject the organics bin to whatever shit was in there.)

“Babygirl you gonna stare into the void forever?”

“Maybe”

“Whatcha thinkin’ ‘bout?” 

“...Still Jason” 

“Booooo”

“I know I just… I don’t know. He’s never home anymore and he won’t talk to me and I just keep thinking that we’re one really good fight from breaking up forever and I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what to do! I’m sorry. I’m venting”

“Oh, yeah, I got that, don’t worry”

“Oh my God, I’m so sorry”

Daisy laughs softly.

“It’s okay! It’s okay. I’m not mad, I’ll never be mad at you”

Liza doesn’t know what she’s supposed to say to that, so she just looks down at her feet and smiles a little. She’s missed Daisy. If Grant’s going to fuck off to North Carolina for 6 months and lose out on Daisy he’s an idiot. A beautiful idiot. God, she had such high hopes for Jason after Grant and Riley. No, that’s too mean to Jason. He’s the longest relationship she’s ever had, there has to be a reason for that. He is so kind, and so easy to love, and beautiful. Liza feels a twinge of pain behind her lungs. She misses him. She misses spending time with him.

“So Jase just isn’t around anymore? Like, at all?”

“Kinda”

“Do you know where he even is? Like he can’t just disappear”

“I uh, I don’t know. I don’t know where he goes. It actually really freaks me out”

“Huh. Son of a bitch. Okay! I’m gonna beat him up”

“What?! Daisy?!”

“I’m gonna call him right now and yell at him- No! I’m gonna make Grant call him right now and yell at him!”

“Daisy, come on”

“I’m gonna break both his legs so he can’t run away”

“Daze.” 

“He has this coming. I would know”

She would know. Daisy might as well be the secret fourth Brody child after how long she’s known Grant. It’s an implicit closeness you have to earn; something Liza’s been gently jealous of since they met. Almost three years can’t even hope to compete with Daisy’s just-a-little-over twelve. It’s like, fine, though. Like it’s not fine, but it’s something she can stand. Like being a bit of a stranger in Matriarch Brody’s home, in Jason’s childhood home, should be normal, but now it just feels like an extended metaphor for feeling unwelcome in her own now-home. Jason’s home turf. It’s absolutely ruined Malibu for her. 

And it’s not like the feeling can even transfer, because Jason’s never met her mom. And even if he had it’s also not as if she could buy and then establish her own apartment, and invite him in, retroactively ruining Orange County or wherever she could fucking afford. Stupid thought. Petty thought. A Santa Monica penthouse, rent-free (!) and she’s still whining? Who’s this fucking stupid. Oh shit is that a hand flapping in front of her face?

“Lizaaaaaaaa. You’re doing it again”

“Oh. Oh! Sorry! I’m so sorry” 

“And it’s still okay!”

Daisy’s laugh could cure a plague. Liza’s missed being close with other girls a lot. Her last good girlfriends where when she was 16 and still living in Albuquerque. God, okay, let’s not go down that road. 

The cigarette Liza’s been nursing is more than half gone. She taps off the little hat of ash with the cherry-red tombstone nails she had done yesterday to celebrate wrapping, and brings it to her mouth slowly, careful not to drop anything burning or staining on her skirt or legs. She felt weird getting the nails done. It’s the most self-indulgent thing she’s spent more than $15 on in maybe months, but besides that they’re impractical. They go against old habits about wasting money and catching stiletto talons on nylon, or in doors. The clicking noise is endlessly satisfying but running her hands through her hair in the morning is a potential minefield, like petting dogs too hard or scratching an itch. She was going to wear a shorter skirt today, maybe a romper, but there's a mosquito bite on her thigh and she gouged it while half-asleep in the shower that morning. Didn’t even notice until she was drying off and saw the blood specks on the towel. 

“Daze?”

“Liz”

“What should I do?”

“Get revenge”

“... What?”

“Revenge! Ghost him back! Ditch him for a weekend or whatever”

“Yeah? And do what?”

“Uhh stay with me, obviously. Oh wait! Shit! Let’s go on a fucking vacation! We could go to San Diego! Or Joshua Tree! Or Tijuana! Something stupid and touristy!”

Stupid and touristy. Tourist. Big fucking tourist. Oh great it’s fucking Albuquerque time. Liza closes her eyes and tilts her head up, but it’s too bright against the inside of her lids so she tilts her head down instead, bending forward slightly. Nana. Daisy doesn’t know about Ximena; neither does Jason. Liza tries very hard not to think about her most of the time. And she’s going to try even harder right now!

“What if we just stay here? There’s stupid tourist shit to do in LA. We could have like a staycation”

“I hate that fucking word so much, though”

“I know you do. Let’s do it anyways though. Let’s hit up Ollie’s tonight for supplies. I’m going to see my mom Sunday, if you want to come to that, too”

“Mmm… okay. Are we going back inside?”

Liza thinks it over; decides she would rather die.

“No. Let’s go get smoked out by Ollie”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i feel obligated to justify myself in regards to the tags, but also, i could just not do that
> 
> winky emoji
> 
> while we're here im just gonna plug my liza 8tracks mix. it's post-canon but the general mood still applies and i stand by my choices  
> https://8tracks.com/starbxte/your-ex-lover-is-dead


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> gals being pals

Liza grinds her cigarette into a smudge on the concrete beneath her heel and looks up to Daisy trying to throw hers, still smoldering, into the garbage bin at the edge of the lot. She misses. There is an extraordinarily dense pause. Liza cracks first. It’s been a few days since she last laughed out loud and a long time since she last lost her shit like this. She’s falling off the car while Daisy has to stalk over to the limp cigarette, stamp it out, toss its flaccid corpse in the bin. She’s halfway off the car, death grip on the hood, choking on air when Daisy steps back and flicks her on the ear. She has to sacrifice her grip on the car to smack her once on the arm, miss, and immediately fall down. Her head smacks into the hood of the car on the way down, and she sits in the dirt catching her breath. 

“You deserve that”

A snort. Oh, gross.

“Maybe”

Liza tries to drags her corpse out of the dust, trips on air, and falls again; but this time Daisy comes to her rescue, gripping onto her forearms, pulling her up. They stand circled in each others arms for a minute while Liza catches her breath and waits for the dizziness to wear off. She won’t meet Daisy’s eyes and lets her gaze rest on Daisy’s collarbone. They release each other at the same time and walk around to their sides of the car. The drivers side door is open from when Liza grabbed the cigarettes and this time she goes down on one knee to tape the pack back under the drivers seat. Daisy flops into the passenger's seat and immediately steals the keys out of Liza’s purse so she can play with the radio. 

“Find something with a female vocalist”

“Aw, are you in a mood? Do you want me to play something vengeful too? Like, while we’re at it?”

Liza drops herself into the driver’s seat and reaches over to try the radio herself. Daisy hums a nursery rhyme while Liza hits the random button. The opening for ‘Jolene’ by Dolly Parton comes on and she’s so shocked she can only stare at the dash with her hand hovering in the air. Until she can’t take it anymore and starts laughing; Daisy joins her until they’re choking on joy and missing the first verse. Daisy rolls all the windows down and sings along as loud as she can. 

The drive from Anaheim to Malibu is spent mostly singing with long patches of soft quiet. They take the extra long route, swinging down to Long Beach, following the coast. They have to stop once in El Segundo for gas, so naturally Daisy ditches the car immediately to get Takis at the convenience store. Mostly to bribe Ollie. Mostly. Or so she says. 

“He’s having a flaming hot Cheetos phase,” Liza lets her know on the way to pay

Daisy, bicep deep in the snack aisle, “hmm. So he is”

“Put those back”

Daisy, now both exceptionally toned biceps deep in the general volume of a large dog’s worth of snacks, “hmm”

“Just don’t get crumbs all over my car”

“Buy a car vacuum already,” the family-size bag of Popcorn twists on a snack effigy for a Newfoundland Labrador throws back

Liza pays for her gas and a pack of cinnamon gum, fruit-patterned lighter, and air freshener, while Daisy puts most of the snacks back. Daisy buys her (now way more reasonable) pile, Liza watches a motorcycle pull up in front of the gas station. 

He’s dressed like an asshole. So what if it’s hot? 

T-shirt and shorts was already pretty bad but he’s also got to wear flip-flops? There’s a prick of pain behind her liver, just under the spine, where on skin level a tiny indentation of missing flesh you wouldn’t even see unless the light was angled just right, is the only indication Liza Snow has ever been bounced off the hood of a silver 2006 Honda Accord. She wonders, not for the first time, what it must have been like to wash that car after, and did they ever find that piece of her somewhere on the car? Her third and last time on a motorcycle, a touch over a year ago. Jason’s motorcycle. Fuck. 

“What planet you on, Ms. McGuire?” 

“Uranus”

“Wow”

Daisy is too busy playing mad and storming out to notice the teenager behind the counter smile at Liza when she walks past. She winks back just because and steals Daisy’s bag of those unnecessarily spicy lime Takis. Daisy goes back to playing with the radio and finds some station playing Crystal Castles and they just let it go for the next hour with minimal singing. Not for lack of trying just, there are some sounds you can’t replicate vocally. Probably why they both devolve into just harmonising with the instrumentals at some point. Also why Daisy spends commercial breaks making robot noises. 

Arriving in Malibu means acknowledging that Ollie lives in a cage. This isn’t being mean he’s very up-front about it. Sure the cage has a very well-compensated security team (they have three German Shepherds. Three of them.) but it’s still a cage. The size of a small municipality. With two pools and a tennis court. And four separate buildings. Before she knew him that well (and also still now a little bit sometimes) Liza felt just the slightest push to murder him. You know, in the name of class-war. It’s not personal it’s just when you live out of an actual motel for over two years as a teenager this kind of empty, pristine, pointless space can feel a little bit like getting stabbed just under the ribs, popping the lungs. 

Whatever. Free drugs. Also pool.

Plus Ollie’s a sweetheart. Him and his awful fashion sense. And copious wealth. Daisy had texted him on the way over at some point so the weird guy with the goatee and the mirrored sunglasses and the crew cut lets them in after glaring at their license plate suspiciously through the gate, without having to talk over the intercom. What’s he so touchy about? King jackass of the gate hut. 

Daisy gives him the finger when they’re far enough away that he can’t really see what it is. They’re not even at the house. That’s right, Ollie’s fucking driveway is longer than the average field of vision and you still aren’t even at the fucking house. He has the decency to meet them at the door with a hug and gifts. 

“You guys like fruit? I got clementines...”

“Aren’t those just mini oranges?” Daisy says into his shoulder

“I thought mandarins were the mini oranges,” Liza says into his other shoulder, “hi Ollie, we got you something, too”

“Clementines aren’t even oranges they just look like that… oh shit thank you” 

The scene of Ollie wearing a dirty t-shirt that might be Jason’s from high-school and an uncomfortably old pair of denim cut-offs eating Cheetos by the fistful, gently stoned, unshowered, in his grand manors foyer feels vaguely like a movie from the 90’s. Like if you stapled the Lebowski’s together. Liza has a brief flash of bloodied staples sticking out of Ollie’s face and has to rip her eyes away. They land on Daisy, sitting on the right-most grand staircase, peeling a clementine, ripping at the skin with her teeth. She’s smearing lip gloss on the segments and its getting glitter everywhere. 

“Wait… why are you guys here?”

Liza lowers herself to the opposing grand staircases third step from the bottom and kicks her shoes off. Strappy platform sandals. Weird tan-lines but the alternative is socks or feet sunscreen; “we need to have a reason to visit a friend?” 

The shredded, glossy pink clementine chunks answer in Daisy’s voice; “you owe us money and weed”

“Oh shit how much money?”

“Five million dollars”

Oliver says something like “no way” or “I can’t give you that” or “was it in cash?” Liza wouldn’t know, she isn’t paying attention again. She’s wondering where Ollie’s parents are. In this enormous house, on this enormous estate, with its private beach and cabanas and separate servants quarters and a fucking helipad, where Oliver Carswell’s parents are. They probably aren't even on this continent. Liza Snow misses her own mother. A miasma of guilt pulses in the air, just for a moment. It’s been months since she’s seen her. The guilt blooms into sadness and now she doesn’t want to think about this anymore. Oh yeah, weed. Where are they on that?

Oh they’re throwing fruit into each others mouths from across the foyer

“Hey Daisy!”

“What?!”

“Did you get the weed?”

“Oh fuck we were gonna buy weed”

Ollie lives in a bungalow on the north-west side of the estate. It has two storeys and a patio. Pause to marinate in the odd fury this may inspire, but not long enough to think about it too much. Stand on his roof and you could realistically spit directly into the ocean. The ghosts of cherry pits and watermelon seeds that were put to exactly that purpose litter the sand. He offers to let them take a golf cart, but Liza declines; she’s been driving for about two hours now and the weather is beautiful, as usual. Daisy elects to skateboard. She had a phase in high school. 

“Hey Daze”

“Hey Liz”

“Do an ollie”

Oliver kicks his shoe into the middle of the path they’re taking so she has an obstacle and Daisy makes them film it so she can post it on Twitter. 

The girls sit back-to-back in the striped hammock on Ollie's porch and swing as high as they can. As high as they can is almost high enough to bash Daisy’s head into the under-roof. 

Ollie comes back out with a bong and a frankly ridiculous bag of weed. Like you could put a fabric cover on the bag and use it for a pillow. Liza declines the bong (she doesn’t feel like driving her car into the ocean or like, another car, on the way home) and lets Ollie take her place on the hammock so she can go walk into the surf, calf-deep. Kick the ocean a bit. Take her general frustration out on God or nature or whatever. It would be better to take it out on Jason probably but that would mean talking to him, or looking at him. Hearing him talk. She turns back to the hammock. 

“Hey, Oliver”

“What’s up?”

“Have you seen Jason lately?”

“Uhh I don’t know. Not really. Haven’t seen him in a while, actually”

“Oh”

Daisy’s looking over at her sadly. Ximena had ingrained her with a deep-set hatred for pity, and Daisy’s look is a lot like pity, but it’s Daisy, she wouldn’t do that. So Liza just looks back, as steady as she can. 

Until she can’t anymore and turns back around to sit on the bank, feet in the water. If Oliver picked up on the general vibe, he doesn’t say, and she’s grateful for that. He’s busy anyways.

She wonders what Jasons doing, and then feels bad about thinking about him softly when she’s still mad at him. She wonders if he’s home or if he’s out doing whatever he fucking does all fucking day. Or whomever. If he’s out fucking his side-piece. She would rather die than admit to anyone that she’s gotten this paranoid, but she’s taken to huffing the neck rest of the couch, and pillows, and their bed; sniffing for perfume, or new sweat. Nothing yet. Jason isn’t stupid enough to bring somebody into their apartment, she doesn’t think. God, what is she doing? Jason wouldn’t cheat on her. She hopes; maybe she prays, the catholic in her rearing its head. 

The catholic in them both. Both her parents; both her and Jason. 

The terrible thought that she might have been dating her father this whole time rises up out of the desert to spit at her. She had wondered what her mother had seen in her father that had kept her loyal, and now she wonders if she knows. Is romantic love just misplaced piety? God, what if it is? If it is she’s going to kill herself. 

A clementine smacks her in the shoulder blade and she turns to see Daisy smiling apologetically, but also holding three other pieces of fruit. Liza stands and peels it on her way back to the hammock, popping wedges in her mouth. When she sits back down on the hammock it creeks ominously, but neither Ollie nor Daisy seem to care all that much so she decides not to as well. All three of them sit there, swinging in the burgeoning sunset, eating chips and fruit, two of them smoking loud.

The sun is minutes from kissing the horizon when Ollie falls asleep. This is, ironically, the push that jolts the girls back into consciousness, reminding them that it’s probably time to go. Daisy puts her arm around his shoulders to shake him awake without dropping him on the floor, while Liza picks up their debris. Oliver gets to sit cross-legged on the skateboard carrying everyone's shit with the girls each holding a hand and pulling him along, back up to the carport. He gets up slowly, with his arms out for balance, but with the disoriented squint he just looks like he’s trying to make people about to jump him get back. When he straightens up properly he’s still pretty fucked up, but smiling gently. Liza feels that pinch of sadness, and another, deeper, pinch of weird second-hand loneliness. 

He murmurs “see you” during the hug goodbye, and she kisses him high on the cheek before she repeats it back. She holds him at arm-length to smile at him properly and makes note that he might be too far gone to remember this later. Daisy makes a little moue and goes “aww” before she steps forward and pulls Ollie into a much tighter hug that almost pulls him up off the ground. He tries to do it back but can’t get a good enough grip or footing and Liza has to grab onto the back of Daisy’s shirt so they don’t overbalance and brain themselves on the ground. But everyone’s laughing about it again so she guesses it’s fine. 

“Oh wait I have something else you could take if you want it,” is the exceptionally cryptic announcement preceding maybe the best/worst part of this whole visit; a silver 2000 Porsche Boxter. Liza blanches.

“We can’t take this-”

“OH MY GOD OLLIE THIS IS AMAZING DOES THE ROOF COME OFF?!!”

Daisy begs for it like a child begs to keep a stray for a pet (“please can we take it please please please pleeeeeeeeaaaaaaase???”) so Liza relents. You can imagine that ‘relents’ with air quotes if you want; she wants to drive it really bad. It’s a nice car. A nice fucking car. The roof does come off. Somebody before them had taken off the shell, so the convertible goes down with a touch of a button. They pack the front trunk with snacks and weed, and some stuff out of Liza’s car. She leaves the cigarettes and lighter. 

The headrest of the driver’s seat smells like Tom Ford’s Neroli Portofino, so the car probably belongs to Oliver’s mom. Which makes it feel really weird to just to sit in, much less drive. Does she even know that they have her car? Is this stealing? 

Maybe the worst part is that the perfume isn’t even to Liza’s taste. For her last birthday Keith had gifted her an ounce bottle of Tobacco Vanille. (Jason had forgotten it. The next day he had shown up with a handmade custom leather jacket, lace-up Ferragamos, and a helmet. He had taken her riding all the way to Ojai and they’d gone swimming in the ocean almost naked.) Liza zones back in in a weird mood and realises somewhere in there that she and Daisy had climbed into the car. 

Ollie waves as they head off along his driveway, back to Santa Monica and Daisy’s apartment, and king jackass of the gate hut opens the gate for them before they even have to slow down.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is as far as i really planned the story when i started... we enter uncharted waters


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Women Be Sane.

Daisy sings the whole way home. She lets her voice drop an octave and the bass rumble in her chest. Liza finds a channel waving between 50’s up to 80’s pop, listens to Daisy harmonise with Nancy Sinatra. The music swirls around her head with the perfume and the weed and the breeze off the ocean and the gasoline smell of the highway. It’s a miracle Liza doesn’t drive them right off a cliff into the cold, welcome embrace of the ocean with how dizzy she’s getting. 

“That’ll show him. That would fucking show him,” buzzes through the evil parts of her brain.

They pull up to Daisy’s bungalow without incident, don’t even open the door into the cyclist, shattering his kneecaps. The ocean salt erodes the paint, there is no lawn to prepare for drought, and there’s sand everywhere. The paint is a soft yellow and the walls are covered in windows, the roof with skylights, the yard with cacti and palm, the air smelling of freshness and the sea. Daisy rises out of the car slowly so Liza offers her hand but Daisy just drops her house keys into her palm and closes her eyes. Liza unlocks the door and wanders into the kitchen first, pouring water from the filtered pitcher in the fridge into two glasses, and sits on the floor in front of the sink. 

Her dress isn’t ruined but she’s gonna need to hand wash it to get the dirt and dust out of the ass. Daisy wobbles in and falls into the door to close it. She could get it dry-cleaned. Daisy braces both hands against the wall to kick her shoes into her closet. Yeah, just dry-clean a dress she can clean herself that makes so much sense. She’s getting so fucking lazy and spoiled. Daisy shuffles into the kitchen and drops her head into Liza’s lap, closes her eyes, guides Liza’s free hand up to her hair. What would her 16-year-old self think to look at her? 

“Liza?”

“Yeah, baby?”

“Pass me a water”

“Let’s sit on the couch”

Liza takes her dress and bra off, makes sure she folds it, borrows Daisy’s oversized college t-shirt with the sleeves chopped off, Daisy throws everything except her underwear into a pile in front of her washing machine, pulls one of Grant’s shirts out of the fresh laundry pile, pins her hair back. Liza takes the cups and pitcher to the coffee table and they empty the pitcher watching the dust motes buffet in the breeze off the air conditioner. 

“We left all our shit in the car”

“Yeah”

“Should we get it?”

“You wanna put on pants?”

Liza blends pineapples with frozen orange juice and water (and gin) while Daisy orders a large vegetarian pizza and then lays down on the floor in the middle of her living room. Liza doesn’t even bother to put pants on when she goes to get their stuff out of the car. If someone’s gonna feel some type of way about her naked legs they can move. It’s a beach town, bitch, get with it. And if they’re gonna take pictures of her ass then it happens. Whatever. She’s so fucking tired. That would show him, her bare ass on the Instagram explore page in his brothers carport. 

Daisy is hunting through her collection for a bong, refuses to choose between the shiny black one, the barbie pink one, or the custom ceramic one shaped like a penis she had commissioned for Grant as a gift; just pulls out rolling papers and sets up shop sitting on the floor at the coffee table. Liza drops all their stuff on the couch and drops down onto the floor across from Daisy, and they both start rolling joints, drinking slushed tropical citrus from the blender jar.

It takes the pizza lady 20 minutes to get there and she doesn’t even blink at Liza’s pantsless, red-eyed visage. The light is beautiful just past the golden hour and it brings out an almost purple flush to the shadows of her face. She lets Liza weave through her fog for an unspeakable length of time ending when she snaps her fingers in front of Liza’s face to wake her up out of whatever reverie makes her stare at a random delivery-woman's jaw, mesmerised by the colours of her face and her hair and her earrings. Takes her payment and her cash tip, almost saunters back to her car. She has a great ass and Liza watches her go, dizzy with envy, and weed, and alcohol, eating pizza by the handful in someone else’s doorway.

When she remembers to walk back inside and collapse onto the couch, she finds Daisy watching Courage the Cowardly Dog. They pick through the pizza, the snacks; Liza feels the last few years fall off her back like water, and she is young again. She is twenty-six years old and it has been 10 years since she has seen the city of her birth. It is 2 days before she will see her mother. It has been unknowable days since the last time her lover made his feelings clear. 

She doesn’t even remember falling asleep, but she wakes up with Daisy’s head pillowed on her thigh, and the stars out. The TV is still running but the volume is way down and it’s mostly unobtrusive. It’s playing some claymation shit she can’t place. The initial fog of her high is fading, but she’s hungry again and they’re out of pizza, so she squirms out from under Daisy to steal her fancy hipster ice cream and eat it from the carton on the floor. She doesn’t register Daisy waking up but she hears the glass back door slide open, takes another spoon out of the drawer, goes to sit next to Daisy in the beach chairs out on the back porch. They can only kind of see the ocean, but they can hear it well. More than that, they can hear a party or 3 out on the sand, down the block, wherever. They sit there splitting the ice cream, feel their cells divide. Friday night joy floats along the air, eases something in Liza’s chest she cannot name. 

“What time is it?”

“Your oven clock said 11”

“Do you wanna shower first?”

“Yeah, thanks”

“I’m gonna eat this whole thing, then”

Liza yawns and stretches, arms above her head, hands balled into fists, chest out, “‘kay”

The bathroom is the most luxe room of the house; marble counters, granite floor, claw-foot tub next to a glass shower enclosure. There’s a trains bar cart for toiletries on top of the medicine cabinet. It’s amazing. She massages her makeup off her face with Daisy’s fancy French cleanser and lets her iTunes go on shuffle, phone on full volume, pulls her cheeks up and back, presses down, feels the flesh stretch and bounce. Slaps herself once, and then again. Watches the red bloom on her reflections cheeks. Wonders what the hell is on the inside if this is what’s on the outside. At first pass the water in the shower is too cold, then too hot, but she lets it scald her back anyways. Let her skin be melted and washed down the drain, let her be remade in a chrysalis of her own muscle and bone. Turns it back down to lukewarm to rinse her hair and wash her face, brush her teeth with Daisy’s toothbrush. Is it Daisy? It’s the green one and that’s her favourite colour so it should be but God only knows what the fuck. 

She pats her hair and body with the same towel, finger combs her damp hair out, twists it up and back into a bun. Pours acid toner into a cotton pad and wipes the top layer of skin off her face, twice. Glares at the shadow of her naked body visible through the mist on the mirror. Smacks her own ass just to hear the crack of flesh on flesh. Feels the sting echo in her carved up bug bite. Presses some of Daisy’s dumb expensive French serum into her face and neck and the tops of her boobs and shoulders, tops it with Cetaphil lotion. Pulls a face in the mirror. Bares her teeth. Rubs more lotion into her knees and elbows, sits on the toilet lid, shakes her hair out, starts braiding. One long Dutch braid from the crown of her head down her neck. She doesn’t even open her eyes. Lets the water left drip down her back, drop off her fingers and wrists. 

Liza is hyper-aware of being naked in Daisy’s bathroom, soon to be close-to-naked in the bed she otherwise shares with her lover. Pulls Daisy’s shirt back on slowly; feels every brush of fabric, air, and water against her skin. Turns her phone off and tucks it into her underwear waistband. Shuffles out of the bathroom, down the hall, passes Daisy, keeps her eyes down, says nothing. Once in the bedroom she switches out her underwear with one of the emergency sets she stashes in her purse, replaces it with her phone, hides the dirty set under the rest of her laundry. Sits cross legged at the foot of Daisy’s bed, lights another blunt; inhale, hold it. 

Hold it.

Hold it…

Exhale.

Walks the essential oil diffuser to the kitchen (hears the shower run, remembers occupying the same space naked, blushes) fills it at the sink, adds lavender. Drags her feet on the way back past the bathroom. Starfishes on Daisy and Grants bed, lets the cloud of weed and lavender halo around her. Watches the light of the moon and the streetlamps fall through the sheer purple curtains. Notices she can’t hear the shower anymore. Blows smoke rings. Thinks of Jason.

What’s he doing? Where is he doing it? Who’s he doing it with? Does he think of her? Is he looking for her? Is he worried? (Good.) Is he scared? (Good.) How scared? (Fuck him.) 

…

There is no message from Jason on her phone. There is a text from Ollie. It’s a picture of her sitting with her feet in the waves, framed in sharply contrasting light. It’s beautiful, if overwrought. She turns her phone to airplane mode and flops back onto the bed. Realises she can hear feet heading up the hall towards her, panics thinking about looking into Daisy’s face with this much skin on display. The door opens anyways and Daisy walks in as steadily as she has tonight, her hair up, wearing boxers she must’ve snatched out of the dryer and the same shirt. She reaches up to let her hair out and Liza watches the muscles of her shoulders and biceps tense and relax. Pulls a brush off her dresser and walks back until she can drop her ass onto the mattress. Their thighs brush against each other, Liza on her back smoking, watching Daisy brush her hair out, perfect posture. When the blunt burns down to a roach she ashes it in a tin box on the windowsill. 

Daisy finishes brushing her hair wordlessly and piles it up on the top of her head, lays her towel down over one of the pillows. The girls lie parallel on their backs without saying anything or moving until Daisy rolls over onto her side and pokes Liza in the shoulder. Curled towards each other like parentheses, Liza watches the arm Daisy has curled forward and under her head rise and fall with her breathing. She watches from outside of her body as Daisy reaches forward to brush her loose baby hairs back against her skull, feels her fingers trace the shell of her ear and curve around the underside of her jaw, lift off under the chin. She can’t help the fluttery laugh or the flush. She feels so tired suddenly. So tired and so young.

“What?”

“Nothing,” Daisy murmurs. She rises up slowly to kiss Liza on the forehead, “goodnight babygirl”

“... Goodnight Daze,” Liza whispers back. She watches Daisy lean back and close her eyes. Neither of them have bothered to pull a sheet over them. Why would they? It’s hot inside. It’ll get cold as the heat leeches out into the cloudless desert night but now it’s still warm, radiant after being baked by the cloudless desert day. The unforgiving embrace of the sun. Under the frozen arm of the moon Liza watches Daisy’s collarbones flex as she breathes. She counts the freckles peppered across her face and ears and chest. Liza has none herself. Learned habit inherited by her mother and her aunts and her cousins to slather herself in sunscreen so she wouldn’t tan, or blemish under the sun. Daisy and Jason let themselves get dark. Daisy not quite as much as Jason (who’s let faint sun spots scatter on his temples, one right next to his left/her right eye). They live without her dogma. 

She allows herself to grow faint of consciousness despite her discomfort, knowing and uncaring that it will lead to evil dreams. Violent, intimate thoughts. She knows she will dream of Ximena, maybe even her father. Hopes it will be lucid so she can kill him with the baseball bat he kept behind the door. Run from there to Nana’s apartment and drag her into the desert hills so they can scream at God. So she can be held and feel a beloved heartbeat against her breast, signature purple fingernails trace the tiny blue butterfly tattoo at her ankle. The lining has faded and become hazy. She should get it touched up. She should fucking relax.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i lied shes so crazy  
> anyways  
> getting gayer! slowly! maybe they fuck next chapter! maybe! idk! gotta read it to find out


End file.
